News
Nigeria owes $3bn debt to traders for oil swaps
Nigeria has accumulated up to $3 billion in debts to trading houses such as Vitol and oil majors such as BP for fuel supplies and is trailing four to six months behind schedule in repaying them with cargoes of crude, four traders and executives told Reuters. Nigeria will likely take months to clear the debt, which will complicate reforms by new President Bola Tinubu aimed at weaning Africa’s largest economy and most populous nation off costly fuel subsidies that have contributed to growing debt and foreign exchange shortages. In his first two weeks in office, Tinubu removed petrol price caps and restrictions on the Naira currency – liberalisation changes that investors have been awaiting for more than a decade. As part of those reforms, Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, plans to scrap an old scheme by which it swaps its crude for gasoline imports. Nigeria for years sold the gasoline, bought at the open market price, to its population at a discount, and the government paid the difference. The subsidy costs about $10 billion last year. The last time the government tried to end the scheme, the move led to protests. Nigeria needs imports because it lacks the refinery capacity necessary to meet domestic demand.
The head of Nigeria’s state oil firm NNPC, Mele Kyari, said earlier this month it was ending the swaps – known as Direct Purchase Direct Sale (DSDP) – after years of criticism by civil society groups including the Nigerian Extractive Transparency Initiative for a lack of transparency and corruption. Kyari said payments would be now made in cash but traders say NNPC is still importing gasoline via swaps for July delivery and has to pay for those cargoes in crude as well as the pending payments for previous months of swaps. The arrangement has for years involved more than a dozen foreign and local trading consortia and back payments are expected to continue until at least October 2023, according to the four traders involved in business with NNPC. NPPC, which claims the government owes it $6billion for subsidised fuel sales, declined to comment. The government declined to comment. Swaps participants including Vitol, Mercuria, BP and TotalEnergies also declined to comment. “Swaps will ultimately stop but not yet. We are getting our swaps crude cargo in October at the earliest,” one major player said.
NNPC had made a rare cash payment in May to some partners of around $200 million, two trading sources said, but no further payment has taken place since amid the government’s cash struggles. Nigeria’s falling oil production has exacerbated the country’s fiscal problems, because it reduces the revenue that could be used to repay debt. Nigeria used to produce 1.8 million barrels per day of crude but output has fallen in recent years to as little as 1.1 million during due to lack of investment. Paying for fuel deliveries with crude cargoes means there is less crude for Nigeria and NNPC’s to export, and so less revenue. NNPC’s contribution to state coffers went from a peak of more than $30 billion a year in 2011 to zero in 2022 as it retained revenues to cover gasoline sale losses.
International monetary experts have long suggested Nigeria remove fuel subsidies and liberalise its foreign exchange to address its fiscal crisis. In recent years, Nigeria’s central bank kept the Naira fixed at an artificially high rate that gradually rose from 200 to 450 Naira to the dollar that only a few players, including the NNPC, could access. That shut out potential private gasoline importers from the market. President Tinubu allowed the Naira to fall steeply in recent weeks, and eliminated preferential Naira rates, a move that means all potential importers get the same forex costs and could compete in fuel imports. But the Naira volatility, which makes it tough to calculate potential profits, and uncertainty over whether firms will be able to get money out of the country due to continued dollar shortages, has for now deterred private firms from importing fuel. Besides private importers, Nigeria will also depend on businessman Aliko Dangote’s refinery to cover fuel demand in the future. Nigeria’s first major oil plant is unlikely to start full-scale operations before next year.
Reuters
A new technology transfer agreement between the Nigeria–China Strategic Partnership (NCSP) and the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer (PICTT) is expected to open more job opportunities, improve local skills, and expand access to advanced technology for ordinary Nigerians.
In a press statement reaching Vanguard on Friday, the MoU aims to strengthen industrial development, support local content, and create clearer pathways for Nigerians to benefit from China’s growing investments in the country.
PICTT Chairman, Dr Dahiru Mohammed, said the partnership will immediately begin coordinated programmes that support local participation in infrastructure and industrial projects.
Special Adviser to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr John Uwajumogu, said the deal will help attract high value investments that can stimulate job creation and strengthen Nigeria’s economy.
NCSP Head of International Relations, Ms Judy Melifonwu, highlighted that Nigerians stand to gain from expanded STEM scholarships, technical training, access to modern technology, and collaboration across key sectors including steel, agriculture, automobile parks, and cultural industries.
The NCSP Director-General reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to measurable results, noting that the partnership with PICTT will prioritise initiatives that deliver direct national impact.
The MoU signals a new phase of Nigeria–China cooperation focused on practical delivery, local content, and opportunities that improve everyday livelihoods.
EU regulators launched an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms on Thursday over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in its WhatsApp messenger that would block rivals, hardening Europe’s already tough stance on Big Tech. The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, is the latest action by European Union regulators against large technology firms such as Amazon and Alphabet’s Google as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.
Europe’s tough stance – a marked contrast to more lenient U.S. regulation – has sparked an industry pushback, particularly by U.S. tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of U. S. President Donald Trump. The European Commission said that the investigation will look into Meta’s new policy that would limit other AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, a potential boost for its own Meta AI system integrated into the platform earlier this year.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the move was to prevent dominant firms from “abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors”. She added interim measures could be imposed to block Meta’s new WhatsApp AI policy rollout. “AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond,” she said. This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims “baseless”, adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a “strain on our systems that they were not designed to support”, a reference to AI systems from other providers. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.” The EU was the first in the world to establish a comprehensive legal framework for AI, setting out guardrails for AI systems and rules for certain high-risk applications in the AI Act.
Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp’s interface across European markets since March. The Commission said a new policy fully applicable from January 15, 2026, may block competing AI providers from reaching customers via the platform. Ribera said the probe came on the back of complaints from small AI developers about the WhatsApp policy. The Interaction Company of California, which has developed AI assistant Poke.com, has taken its grievance to the EU competition enforcer. Spanish AI startup Luzia has also talked to the Commission, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder and CEO of The Interaction Company of California, said if Meta was allowed to roll out its new policy, “millions of European consumers will be deprived of the possibility of enjoying new and innovative AI assistants”. Meta also risks a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
Italy’s antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp, expanding the probe in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform. The antitrust probe is a more traditional means of investigation than the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s landmark legislation currently used to scrutinize Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud services for potential curbs. Reuters
The spouses and children of billionaires inherited more wealth in 2025 than in any previous year since reporting began in 2015, according to UBS’s Billionaire Ambitions Report published on Thursday. In the 12 months to April, 91 people became billionaires through inheritance, collectively receiving $298 billion, up more than a third from 2024, the Swiss bank said. “These heirs are proof of a multi-year wealth transfer that’s intensifying,” UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli said.
The report is based on a survey of some of UBS’s super-rich clients and a database that tracks the wealth of billionaires across 47 markets in all world regions. At least $5.9 trillion will be inherited by billionaire children over the next 15 years, the bank calculates.
Most of this inheritance growth is set to take place in the United States, with India, France, Germany and Switzerland next on the list, UBS estimated. However, billionaires are highly mobile, especially younger ones, which could change that picture, it added. The search for a better quality of life, geopolitical concerns and tax considerations are driving decisions to relocate, according to the report.
In Switzerland, where $206 billion will be inherited over the next 15 years according to the bank, voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected 50 per cent tax on inherited fortunes of $62 million or more, after critics said it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people.
Switzerland, the UAE, the U.S. and Singapore are among billionaires’ preferred destinations, UBS’s Cavalli said. “In Switzerland, Sunday’s vote may have helped to increase the country’s appeal again,” he said. Reuters
-
News3 days agoNigeria to officially tag Kidnapping as Act of Terrorism as bill passes 2nd reading in Senate
-
News3 days agoNigeria champions African-Arab trade to boost agribusiness, industrial growth
-
News3 days agoFG’s plan to tax digital currencies may push traders to into underground financing—stakeholders
-
Finance1 week agoAfreximbank successfully closed its second Samurai Bond transactions, raising JPY 81.8bn or $527m
-
Economy3 days agoMAN cries out some operators at FTZs abusing system to detriment of local manufacturers
-
News1 week agoFG launches fresh offensive against Trans-border crimes, irregular migration, ECOWAS biometric identity Card
-
News3 days agoEU to support Nigeria’s war against insecurity
-
Uncategorized3 days agoDeveloping Countries’ Debt Outflows Hit 50-Year High During 2022-2024—WBG